


Mission

by kikibug13



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Non-Graphic Violence, Serious Injuries, Violence Against Minor Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-04
Updated: 2013-03-04
Packaged: 2017-12-04 08:11:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/708488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kikibug13/pseuds/kikibug13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Damian is almost thirteen, and back from a months-long undercover mission in a place that even <i>he</i> could not imagine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mission

**Author's Note:**

> The story is ignoring most of what the New 52 universe has done with the characters, other than Dick Grayson returning to being Nightwing. 
> 
> For h/c bingo: Moving

The four months on that undercover assignment had been grueling. Damian's physical fitness had been maintained only because of his indomitable will; other than the bones and (thinning) muscle, there was only skin left on his body. His eyes were sunken, his fingers almost looked like claws. And that was discounting the damage that the last fight had caused. It would have been a challenge in his best days; as it was, it was brutal. A bruise started on one side of his neck and covered most of the shoulder, a deep cut at the lower end of it. There was a slash - a saber slash - across his back. His legs were... well. Some of that hadn't been tended for a while, because he didn't even always have water to drink, let alone to clean himself, and some of it was newer. 

But he'd done it. He'd broken down _that_ setup, and no others - children or adults - would have to suffer there. And, yes, he had left three of the people running it closer to death than had been strictly necessary. Two of them had died while the medical teams called in had been - mostly too busy tending to those men's victims. Damian was not _sorry_ for those two deaths. 

His Father took a different view of it - decided he'd broken his promise, again. The words they snarled at each other made Damian's second full meal in months, the sandwiches Pennyworth _had_ made sure were up to his taste, even, weigh like lead in his stomach, and taste about as poisonous.

In the end, the boy stormed out of the Cave on his bike, and he _drove_.

Damian Wayne ended up in New York city in the middle of the time that he would have been on patrol (if anyone had _allowed_ him to go out on patrol), and he needed to stop and fuel the bike. Once he did, though, he realized the last surge of adrenaline had worn off and he had nothing to replace it with. He needed a place to crash, and fast. 

The only solution his whoozy mind could find to that was one of Grayson's safehouses (yes, he knew them, he had from the moment the idiot had left for this abhorrent city), even if the mere thought of the man made him want to really have strength to go beat some bad guys up. Right now. His partner, his _brother_ , his mentor. Who had left Gotham and the role of Batman that Damian has joined as Robin, and never, from what the boy could tell, looked back. 

Maybe he was going to chance on one of the apartments Grayson wasn't using. It was a better option than collapsing on the street, and the latter was far too probable for his taste.

Damian climbed in through a window, reset the alarm, stumbled - _stumbled!_ \- to the bed, kicked off his boots, and passed out.

It was the best sleep he had had in months. There were dreams, of course, but that was nothing new. For a change, there was the feeling that there was nobody he had to stay half-alert because of. He was _safe_. It was... an improvement.

The morning was foggy, but he still detected the glide of a shadow across him. Instantly alert, he cracked his eyelashes open a sliver... only to see a familiar acrobatic figure outlined against the window. Grayson's face under the mask was so - so worried that Damian sighed.

"I am well, Grayson!"

The assurance left his lips without much thought, and then he glared at his former mentor. Who took a sharp breath, then started chuckling. "Oh, I've missed you, little D. Want some breakfast? I have cornflakes."

The simple initial statement made Damian want to hiss and remember why he hadn't wanted to come here in the first place. The man was _insufferable_. Just like that, he'd managed to cut a wound deeper than the men at the hellhole had succeeded to do in four months. Even though no blade had touched him, Damian could feel it. Slicing across his chest, making it hard to breathe. Hard to think. Hard to speak.

"Cornflakes will do."

"Really?" The way Grayson's face brightened was truly ridiculous. Pathetic. Damian didn't want to tear his eyes away from it, because it also looked like the sun rising after a storm. "You never want cornflakes. I'll get right on to that."

And he danced - Grayson's motions always looked like a dance - towards the kitchen, the clatter Damian fully expected muted by careful handling. 

The boy sighed, slumping back against the unmade bed, and tried to think. It was easier than last night. 

Not by much. 

He grumbled, then gingerly rose to his feet and headed towards the bathroom. A shower would be a start.

When he came out again, a robe that was too large for him but provided sufficient cover wrapped around him, there was a bowl of the cereal waiting... and a cup of tea. 

And a Richard Grayson, fingers tapping around his own mug of coffee, looking down at him from his high seat at the counter, blue eyes excited and happy on him, and all the semi-settled state Damian had achieved in his mind during the shower just fell apart. 

"Do you need help with reapplying bandages?"

"I am fine, Grayson."

"You are limping, and you're favoring one arm. I don't know what _else_ you have on you, but you being you, that makes for significant damage."

"Shut up."

The man blinked. "Little D?"

"Why do you even care? I mean, really. You left. You went away and then you can't act like everything is fine. Which it isn't. And yet here you are, and you even--" he motioned towards the tea. "You act like you know me. But you _went. away._ "

Grayson's mouth opened, then closed again, the blue eyes darkening as Damian's words kept coming. 

"Sit down." Beat. "Please."

Damian glared, then did. And started shoving cornflakes soaked with milk down, because he was way too aware of his current state and what he needed. Calories. Also better calories, but he doubted there was anything more nutritionally balanced, here, so it would have to do. He guzzled tea in-between bites. It was not strong enough, but it was something. 

"I..." Grayson swallowed, eventually, open his mouth and closed it, then tried for the third time, watching him, getting up to refill his tea, because Damian had drunk it that quickly. "Sometimes, people have to do things for our own sanity, too. I... Bruce and I are important to each other, but we still - can't work too close together for too long. And I'm..." He seems to stop himself. But then goes on. "I'm not supposed to be Batman."

"You fooled _me_." Damian could hear the snarl in his own words. He couldn't help it. The way they had started, the two of them. Damian had _told_ him he was no Batman, and the man had proved him wrong. And kept on proving him wrong for a long time. 

Grayson winced. "No, it's not like _that_!"

"Then _how_ is it?"

"You _know_ how Gotham went after B. vanished, Damian. She _needed_ Batman. And I couldn't wear the cape and not do it sufficiently well."

"Tt." But Damian had to admit there was something to that. There was no use doing something if you were not going to do it well. 

Grayson seemed to get that the point had gone through, because he gave a small half-smile and went on. "But that wasn't - it wasn't what I could do for very long. Not because of you - for the record, you being Robin made some things more complicated, but the whole time much more kick-ass! - but the whole... Gotham is cruel, Damian. I'm not... I can't carry her on my shoulders. I can't."

"It's better than--" Damian clamped his mouth shut. "Never mind. Go on."

"That's all there is to it. Well, no. There's also the part where you two needed to learn how to work with each other. Be a family, not a commanding officer and a soldier." 

"Yeah, that's going _great_." 

"But you'd get no chance to even try if I were there, right? Think about it."

"Hnn..."

"I should have explained that when I took off, shouldn't I."

"That might have helped."

Grayson moved around the counter to take the tip of Damian's chin and tilt it up so their eyes met again. Damian hadn't even realized he'd been staring down for a while. "Damian... I am sorry I left. I miss you. But it was needed."

Curse the man and how his voice could make even this statement be believable. For a moment, Damian's breath caught, then he glared. "But you left. Like everyone."

Grayson's eyes widened and he let go. "No, I..."

Damian grabbed his tea cup again and hid his face into it. 

"But you came here."

"I expected this one to be _empty_."

"But you knew where it was."

"I read the files, Grayson."

"Yeah, you do."

Silence.

"Father and I fought after I came back. I needed to get away. I'd have gone further, but..."

"But you were too tired?"

The mug made a dull thunk as Damian put it back on the counter.

"Yes..."

Grayson sighed. Then he just... stepped against Damian's stool and wrapped him into one of his hugs. 

"Unh--" _and me, Grayson!_ he tried to say, but this voice squeaked and broke, air refusing to work properly, stuck in his chest. He shuddered, and the man held him closer, and Damian found himself sobbing. Which made no sense, he didn't cry! But he couldn't stop. It burned in his throat, the bitterness for being abandoned - again, the tension with his father, the cloying horror of the last job, the fight he'd run away from... Choking him, like he was some sort of an actual child who could allow himself to cry, and not above such things. 

But he couldn't stop. It _wouldn't_ stop, and he was only vaguely aware of being held and warm and rocked by the man - the first person in the world he had grown to trust, and whose presence meant _safety_ , and he was never supposed to be safe; he never _should_ have been safe, considering Grayson had _left_ , yet here he was, gasping desperately for breaths that stuttered down his throat like the only thing keeping him from falling apart _was_ the selfsame Grayson. The man was even saying something, but Damian's sobs were too loud to make out the words, only the presence of the voice registered.

Damian humiliated himself in this manner for he knew not exactly how long, but, eventually, the outburst tapered down to stupid little hiccups. He felt like a mess, and when he started talking, his throat was raw. 

"I apologize." 

But his chest had loosened, somehow. Damian did _not_ understand what he was doing.

"It's all right, little D." For some reason, Grayson's voice was also hoarse. "This has been a long time coming."

"Not supposed to happen."

"Hah." The sound was ironic, but also soothing. "Damian, you're not a machine. You're very much not a device for violence and killing. You're a living, breathing person. It's part of how people are, to cry. _Especially_ perfect people."

"Tt. There are no _other_ perfect people." The circus boy's words had, once again, calmed him, no matter just how ridiculous they were. 

"Of course, of course. That's what I meant. I mean, just. The fact that you're supposed to be perfect doesn't mean you're not supposed to feel." _Finally_ , Grayson moved back, but only to look him in the eye - his own eyelashes were wet - and reach to place one hand over his chest. One fingertip fell over the hem of the robe and rested on his long-dried skin, failing to tickle. "It means that your heart is also alive and perfect, and means that you have capacity to feel even _more_ than others. Wouldn't denying it mean you're trying to suppress that perfection?"

"... you are ridiculous, Grayson."

"You're only finding that out now?"

" _No_!"

The man let out a small laugh, then reached to tread fingers through his hair. Thankfully, light enough that he didn't really dig nails into the cut at the side. But the calloused fingers felt it, anyway. "Jeez. Just how bad was that place, anyway?"

"You know where I was?"

"Yeah, I've been keeping track via the files. What Bruce doesn't let _me_ see, I get via Oracle."

"Sneaky." It felt so weird, to chime in with comments and to be asked actual questions and for the person responsible to listen to the answer. So much better. So like... a place he _belonged_.

"I do that. Anyway." He reached to the counter for the tea cup, even though he had to cross his arms to manage that. His other hand never left Damian's chest. It felt like sunshine. "Bad?"

Damian hesitated for a moment, then turned his eyes away. "I... have lived where life is not of the same kind of value as it is here, as it is with you. But I have never been at a place where extinguishing, disrupting it, debasing it was the goal, the holy goal. It was... not a cult to Kali - it was a thousand times worse. It _had_ to end."

"I can imagine."

"Don't. Don't try to imagine it." His eyes bore into Grayson's, and his voice dropped to an angry whisper. "Don't try to learn the details, don't try to get me to talk. It is not a place for you to be. Ever."

"Damian..." The acrobat was frowning. "There was somebody there that reminded you of me?"

"How did you--"

Dick sighed, and Damian glared. His eyes felt crusty, but he finally took the cup to his lips and drank more of the now-lukewarm liquid. "You wouldn't be trying to keep me away if you weren't already seeing me there, you know?"

"Maybe not. But that place..." Damian took a shaky breath. "Had to break the spine of the security. Two of the men died on the way to whatever medical center that forsaken locale could permit."

"That's why B..."

"Yes."

Silence. Damian didn't look back up. 

"You can stay here as long as you like. I'll be here, too. And when you go back, you'll always be welcome here, too."

"I wasn't asking..."

"I know you weren't. But I should have said that a while back, because it's true. I may have moved out of Gotham, but you... You'll always have a home with me."

"Stop being sentimental, Grayson."

"Or, what, you'll cry again?"

"... shut up. Shut. _up_! If you ever mention this to another living soul, I'll--"

"Do I understand you accept, then? If we're back to threats, I mean, back to normal?"

The boy was quiet for a long moment, then slowly met Grayson's eyes again. "Do you really mean it?"

There was brightness in those eyes, but not a trace of insincerity, mocking or otherwise. "Completely."

"Hnn. Sentimental fool." Quiet, maybe a full minute slipped by them. "All right."

The smile he was rewarded with was like the sun breaking through storm-clouds. Perfect. Radiant. Blinding. Mesmerizing. "Finally!"

"What...?"

"I may have imagined getting you here all to myself a time or three. I've got some plans on things to do together."

" _Gray_ son!"

"... after you heal and rest up more, of course. Kid, your cheekbones are just about to cut right through your skin..."

"I'm _not_ a..."

But the back-and-forth finally felt - normal. Right. 

It felt like home.


End file.
